“What are talking about, child?” all three asked at the same time.
“Don’t you child me, you know what you did. I asked for a little spell, something to lighten me up a little because yes I know I’m…I’m considered an ice queen. Jeffry made no secret of that. But you totally abused my trust and turned me into a…a monster.” She wiped the tears flying out of her eyes and dripping under her chin, secured a better hold on her emotions and continued with fewer hysterics. “I’m sure you had fun casting that spell on me but how cowardly of you three to drive for two hours to a stupid fair because you knew I’d be this angry. No, not angry, incensed. I’m
incensed
.”
“Let’s have a cup of tea, shall we?”
“No, Aunt Surtie. You—” The rest of her reprimand ended with a scream. A twenty-foot python slithered through the kitchen toward the back door humming
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
.
“Oh that’s just Henry, child,” Aunt Esmie said.
She lived with three crazy women and a cat called Henry who suffered from an identity crisis every other day. Last week he decided to be a gorilla. Whatever did she do to be punished with such madness?
“You think this is a joke? I could have been arrested for stealing a dildo. Yes, a dildo, from a sex shop. That’s what your spell did to me. Not only has it turned me into a raging lunatic, it doubled up and turned me into a seasoned criminal too. Do you see how serious it is now? Do you see how far you’ve gone?”
Her words fell upon deaf ears. How could that be? She’d just mentioned stealing a dildo from a sex shop, words she never in her wildest dreams would repeat in front of her aunts. Ever. Surely they could mete out the direness of the situation just from what she said.
Surely.
She followed the direction of their dazed focus and found Sebastian standing in the archway of the kitchen, arms folded over his chest, the three top buttons on his shirt undone. The smell of her soap clinging to his skin tinged the air around her.
“Sebastian.” They attacked his face with kisses, hugged him lengthily and looked dreamily at him. He enjoyed their interest and dished out his own in swoon-worthy proportions.
“Stop it. Stop it.” Her command remained ignored as they bombarded him with questions he charismatically answered. “Stop it! I’m the one in need of your attention, not him,” she wailed to no avail. Fine. If that’s the way they wanted to play it, she could make her own noise. She chose the heaviest plate from the cupboard behind her, held the floral-designed ceramic high above her head and dropped it onto the floor. The shattering sound got her what she wanted. All eyes on her. Including a pair she wished she’d never set eyes on again. She neatened the sheet around her and smoothed back her hair. Her dignity would not go the way of her inhibitions, spell or not.
“Good, now that I have your attention. Fix this.” She used her severest tone, her shoulders plucked up a level, her chin free of wavering. She meant business.
Her aunts didn’t jump to honor her demand. Instead their eyes zipped between her and Sebastian. A decided change in their casual ambience bounced off the copper pots dangling from the ceiling, seeped under the Moroccan-tanned tiles and evaporated into the roughly plastered walls, closing out the setting sun, closing in on her.
They wrung their freckled hands together, dismissed the whistling kettle, which normally evoked glee from them. Small glances whisked amongst the three sisters, speaking volumes in a language only the three of them understood. Impending disaster weighed around her. And repercussions, there always had to be repercussions.
“Fiddlesticks,” they muttered together.
Fiddlesticks? Seriously, fiddlesticks?
“Sebastian was the man you were with?” Aunt Lindie’s brows burrowed in the center of her forehead.
“I wasn’t with him by choice. I had no control. Why is that so important?” Seconds ago they burbled profusely over him, now they met his presence with knitted brows. The uncanny feeling of the joke being on her hit her nerves.
“Are you sure?” Aunt Esmie needed her own clarification.
“Of course I’m sure. You’re scaring me. What’s going on? Tell me this instant.”
“Oh dear,” Aunt Surtie mumbled. “Oh dear. Oh dear. Oh dear.”
“What?” Her eyes roved over to Sebastian, standing comfortably against the wall, waiting for the sequel to her debacle to air.
“Oh dear.” Aunt Esmie paced the kitchen, her fingers drumming her collarbone.
“Oh dear.” Aunt Lindie plopped herself into a chair.
“Oh—”
“Stop. Not another oh dear, Aunt Surtie. Start talking, now.”
“The phone.” Aunt Surtie whisked to the phone. A message on the answering machine echoed across the kitchen.
“Hmmm…hi…Misses Stein…all the Misses. Steins. This is ahh…Bruno. I wanted to let you know I kinda didn’t make my date with…with…with Michelle. My father had a slight accident and I had to take care of the butchery. Nothing serious, but I’m in the hospital right now. Hmm…I’m hoping I might…get another chance…”
“Oh dear,” Aunt Surtie garbled.
“Who’s Bruno?” Sebastian pushed off the frame of the arch and strode toward her.
“You set me up with Bruno?” Michelle could not believe her ears. “Wait, the fact that you set me up like that in the first place is deplorable. I could have…I could have…”
“Oh, Bruno is a lovely boy in the meat industry. Gives us the best prime rib. Very shy and very quiet. We thought he’d be perfect for Michelle.” Aunt Lindie offered Sebastian an explanation.
“To take advantage of.” Michelle cringed thinking of the trauma she might have inflicted on the poor man. He barely greeted her without blushing.
“We thought one stone and all.” A weak smile played across Aunt Esmie’s mouth. “We know he’s so shy and Michelle is such an ice princess and we thought—”
“You weren’t thinking at all. I could have…”
“Yes, child, you could have. Instead you did Sebastian.” Aunt Surtie clarified what didn’t need clarification.
“I didn’t do Sebastian, he walked into my shop. That doesn’t matter. What does is that you rid me of the hex right now.”
“We did relieve you of the spell.”
“No, Aunt Surtie, you didn’t because clearly I still don’t feel like my whole self.”
“Yes, but we did,” Aunt Esmie agreed with her sister. “We put it in a timeframe of an hour. From three o’clock to four o’clock. We appointed Bruno to surprise you with strawberries and champagne and promised him you would be eager to see him, as you would have been, given the spell. You were supposed to seduce him, have your man-fun for an hour. We did a reparation spell at exactly four on the dot.” Aunt Esmie filled her in on their modus operandi.
Lovely, just lovely.
“Well, then you’ll have to do another reparation spell.”
“It doesn’t work that way, child. A reparation spell can only be done once and it’s flop proof.” Aunt Lindie’s words echoed in her head.
“It flopped now. So do it again.”
“No. I think I know why it didn’t work.” Aunt Surtie chewed her lip.
“Good. If you know the problem, that’s half the battle won to finding a solution. So find it and do it.”
“Oh dear, Surtie, I think I know why too.”
“What are you saying, Aunt Esmie?”
“She’s saying there was repression involved,” Aunt Surtie said
“But why didn’t we think of it before, sisters mine?”
“Because we weren’t paying attention. But this is the match of the millennium. We are geniuses, sisters mine. Geniuses.”
“No, you all are crazy. Tell me what is going on.”
“Michelle, oh dear child.” Aunt Esmie’s warm hands curled around her arms. “You repressed the spell.”
“No, I didn’t.” She shook her head. “I wouldn’t.”
“You did.”
“What does that even mean?” she begged.
“It means you blocked the repair.” Aunt Lindie approached, cocooning Michelle in her embrace.
“I don’t understand. Why would I do that?” She would never willingly mess with a reparation spell. For starters, she had no idea how the heck anyone messed with a reparation spell, let alone what the procedure of a reparation spell contained in the first place.
Aunt Surtie came to her with her arms opened wide. “Why?” She echoed Michelle’s question, gently touching Michelle’s cheek with a single finger while she tilted her head in Sebastian’s direction. “It’s because of him. Your aura overpowered the spell, Michelle.” She chose her words carefully. “You have a vested, maybe romantic interest…in Sebastian.”
“You refused to give him up.” She vaguely heard Aunt Lindie’s voice in her ear. “And now nothing we do will ever repair the spell. You are bound to him for life. We did well, child, your aunts. We did well after all.”
The thundering clap of her heartbeat deafened the feeble denials stammering between her arid lips. Terror contaminated her stomach. Qualmish pricklings rose in her throat and threatened to upend from her mouth.
Life with her aunts had taught her the value of being practical, the importance of being utilitarian. She didn’t believe in magical fairytales, they simply didn’t apply to her, she was a realist. She put herself first, protected her heart first by successfully chopping off all futile feelings for Sebastian. Her livelihood depended on it. The spell lied.
“No. You’re all mistaken.” Her lashes lifted. Her gaze locked with Sebastian’s. His daring perusal singed down the center of her body and left her naked and exposed. He’d find nothing.
She circumvented her aunts’ embraces, tucked the sheet more securely about her body before she fiddled with an innocent-looking rose detail engraved into the table. The smooth wood parted. Inside a shallow cave lay a tome almost the length and breadth of the table itself. She shunned the book just as she shunned the witches’ blood running through her veins.
“There must be a cure inside that.” She pointed to the maroon leather-bound book, careful not to touch it.
“Michelle…”
“No.” With one hand holding onto the sheet for dear life, she raised her other hand, her palm warding off their approach. “I’m going to make myself decent. When I return you will have found a counter-spell and everything will go back to the way it was.” She turned her attention on Sebastian. “As you can see, Sebastian, you are no longer needed. Goodbye.” She exited the room with a meager amount of dignity attached, enough to prevent her from crying out in desperation and fear.
Chapter Four
Sebastian watched her leave, her back a fragile rod of bunched nerves even though her head remained elevated. The giggling of her aunts brought his attention back into the kitchen. Broad, big-toothed smiles overwhelmed him. Damn, he loved these three women.
“Is there anything I should know? She was burning up and her pulse shot to the roof. Nothing about her was normal or even close to normal. Could there be side effects, fatal ones?”
“Oh no, nothing will happen to her except, well, happy times. Of course you will need to be able to hmm…keep up with her, if you know what we mean. Is your ding-dong nice and long?
Ding-dong?
Were they seriously questioning his sex stamina? He bowed his head and stroked his jaw. “Yes, Aunt Esmie.”
“Yes, yes but she will need an apparatus of a vast width too, you know. Is your ping-pong big and strong?
Ping-pong?
He chuckled. “Yes, Aunt Surtie.”
“Esmie and Surtie, you two are shameless. Behave, you’re making the man blush. You want to know what’s happening to her. Well, she’ll reach a plateau after many dips and highs. It’s like a living organism in her body, seeking that sacred part in her where it could coexist with her. It needs her and she needs you. With her initial rejection when she overpowered the correction spell, she unwittingly strengthened its claws.
“But you, dear one, will remain her beacon—both the spell and Michelle have latched themselves onto you. She’ll just need to ride out the storm, that’s all, and if you can’t be there for her, well, that’s when we’ll have problems. Now, Sebastian, we have a lovely little spell that will give the strength of five men to your cookie monster, what do you say?”
Could he risk not taking the spell? He didn’t know exactly what he was dealing with. Would he be prepared when her sexual appetite grew?
“I think I should take the spell.”
“Wise decision. We must be prepared for anything. Now open your mouth.”
His lips parted. Aunt Esmie sprinkled a tasteless powder in his mouth.
“There you go. All done. Might take a little time to settle in your body, but you’re good to go.”
“I’d like to take Michelle to the house. Is that okay?” He wanted Michelle in his bed. Male pride. The sisters agreed. He excused himself before they came up with more names for his cock.
He rapped on the closed door of Michelle’s bedroom, testing the knob to see if she’d locked it. The door opened. She sat on the edge of the bed, the sheet discarded for a knee-length robe. “So you like me, huh?”
She sprang from the bed, surprised to see him, clearly miffed he hadn’t obeyed her order to leave. “I do not.”
She shoved spades full of contempt his way. His gaze slid over her throat as she swallowed back the tears glittering in her beautiful eyes. “Please go away.” She stalked toward her closet, ripped a skirt off a hanger and grabbed the t-shirt lying on her bed.
“You know I can’t.”
“Yes, you can. It’s very easy. Just walk out of the door and leave. This isn’t your problem anymore. And while I’m grateful for your help, my aunts will take it from here. The book will tell them what to do.” He clasped her arm, stopping her from hurrying into her bathroom. If she locked herself in there, he didn’t have the time to break the door down.
“Let go of me.” She yanked herself free of his hold. “You’re invading my privacy.” She worked enough acid into her voice to kill a republic. He’d known her uppity nature almost all his life, but now her cheekiness had him wanting to floor her and bury his cock deep inside her. She drove him crazy that way.
“I’m trying to help you.”
“You’re trying to help yourself. Don’t think I don’t know how your mind works, world-renowned bachelor that you are. Well I refuse to be one of your many conquests.”
“You think this is why I’m still here. Just hanging around for another chance to fuck you?”
“Yes,” she confirmed before slipping past him. He choked on the haughtiness she left in her trail. How could he want to strangle her and kiss her at the same time? His fingers melded into the flesh of her arms as he brought her back to stand before him again.
“The book doesn’t have the answer, Michelle.”
“It does, it has all the answers. I know because my aunts are always telling me that anything and everything can be found in the book. So your attempts to prolong my misery are short-lived.”
“Shut up and listen to me, for fuck’s sake.”
She flinched. Good, at least he’d get in a word.
“There is no solution in that damn book. Your aunts only know that if I’m not here, something will happen to you. The urges are going to get stronger and the time in between them will lessen.”
“That isn’t going to hap—”
“I’m not done yet.” He gritted his teeth. “Being skeptical about the power of this spell is fucking stupid, which I’m not. I saw something inhumane happen to you, all because I couldn’t get hard in time. I’m not taking any chances with your life.”
“You’re exaggerating.”
“Do you realize I’m trying to help you?”
His serious tone nicked any doubt. She had gotten crazy with want, the feeling had overpowered her. Maybe she was in bigger trouble than she thought.
“I appreciate your help so far, Sebastian, as I’ve said so many times before.” She broke away from him and skirted the edges of the room as he stood in the middle. “But this isn’t your battle to fight. You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. You were dragged into it. But now that I know the facts, I’ll get the help I need until I’m relieved of it.”
“Who’s going to help you? Bruno?” Sarcasm spiked his words as he turned to face her.
“As a matter a fact, yes, if that’s what’s required while I await a solution, then yes. The spell was meant for him anyway.” Poor Bruno, he didn’t know what she inadvertently signed him up for.
“Don’t be stupid. I’m giving you five minutes to get dressed.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you. I can handle myself, so please leave.”
“Why the hell do you have to be so stubborn? Your pride is going to get you killed, Glitterbug. Just let me help you. ”
“My pride is all I have left and I’d prefer anyone else’s help but yours.”
“Get dressed, or I’m carrying you out of here as you are.”
“Have you ever considered that being around you is what might get me killed in the first place? We don’t know what I’m dealing with. The best thing you could do is leave since you could be the problem here.” Whatever doubt she tried to instill in him had zero effect. He believed her aunts. He believed the counter-spell.
“Do you honestly believe I feel anything, anything for you at all and that’s why I prevented the opposing spell?”
“Is that why you want me gone, because you do?” His deep voice, soft and hoarse, undressed her nerves, leaving them hot and raw.
“My aunts messed up their spell, hence the situation I’m in. It will be fixed, I’m certain about that.”
He closed the distance between them. She backed away. He carried on regardless of her retreat.
“Say it, Michelle. Say your feelings for me run so deep no spell could undo them.”
“I’d be lying,” she whispered. His large hands cupped her face, his lips inches from hers.
“You’d be lying if you don’t.” His lips brushed across her mouth, his tongue wet the seam. She trembled against him, her mind melting into oblivion.
“Say you wanted me, Michelle, in spite of the spell, before the spell.” His leg slipped between hers—her robe opened, allowing him easy access. “I need to hear you say it.” He shifted the weight of his body. Her naked pussy brushed against his thigh. Pure rousing need filtered through her. She gasped for breath. He captured her mouth and filled it with untamed desire.
Clear, concise thrills of passion streamed into her blood, unhindered by magic, immaculately natural. She clung to him, his mouth, his body. Her hand tore at his chest—desperate to climb into his skin and feel his violent heartbeat from the inside. She ran out of air and didn’t care—his touch, when she was this clearheaded, nourished the morsels of her soul. She poured herself into him, forgot caution, holding back, being untouchable. Wore down her own defenses until she sagged against him, mewling, whimpering, begging to crawl inside him.
He took her in, matching and exceeding her need with his superior strength. His hands fell from her face to her waist, lifted her off the floor and backed her into a wall. His chest crushed her breasts, his mouth bruised her lips. His cock, rock hard, possessed her body without penetrating her. He broke the kiss. Her lips swelled as he licked down her throat and back up again, whispering against her jaw. “Say it, sweetheart.”
Incredible green eyes defused her defensive armor. She’d tell him anything he wanted to hear. But that. His tongue dipped into the side of her neck, his teeth gently pinching the skin there.
“I’ll never be Catherine Simmers.”
“What?” He lifted his head, his silky brows drawn together.
“Catherine Simmers?” Recognition unfolded in his eyes. “You wanted her, remember?”
A knock on the door barred him from replying. Aunt Surtie entered. Michelle’s cheeks grew hot as she moved away from Sebastian, her robe sealed and closed her nakedness as he removed his thigh from between her legs.
She took a breather as she stared at the sight of her jovial aunts, smiling as if there were no tomorrow for having matched the pair of them, and Sebastian in all his magnificence overshadowing everything around her.
“What’s going to happen to me?”
“Ah, child, nothing so bad as to just wear the spell out.”
“With Sebastian?”
“He is the only man who will do.”
Great, there was no escaping him at all. “How long will this take to wear off?”
“A day, maybe two. Nothing longer.”
Best get it over with.
“What do I have to do?”
“I’m taking you to the house.”
She hadn’t entered Sebastian’s home at the foot of the mountain since that day. She vowed she’d never set foot in there again, had embarked on a campaign to relocate her aunts and herself, but they pointblank refused to budge. And because she felt compelled to take care of them, she had to stay too. They were prone to careless fires and other fatal mishaps, never to be left on their own. So she stayed and soon the house, for all its palatial proportions, disappeared from her sight. Just as she had disguised her feelings for Sebastian with a mask of indifference. And how well she’d succeeded only to have this happen to her.
Now she had to go back in the capacity of a shameless…slut with her solid belief of not loving Sebastian even a bit crashing around her.
“Okay.”
“Oh, there is one other thing we need to discuss,” Aunt Surtie said.
“Indeed. Protection, sister mine. Wouldn’t want to be caught with our pants down when the passion gets into a frenzy, now would we?” Aunt Lindie asked.
“Now—”
“I’m clean,” Sebastian answered before Aunt Esmie could ask the question.
“So am I,” Michelle said softly. Only in her world would her sexual health be discussed with her aunts in tow. She was too tired to ask why again.
“There, nicely settled,” Surtie said.
“I’ll wait in the car for you.”
She nodded at him before escaping into her bathroom for a quick shower, hoping the sharp jets of hot water would instill some courage in her. She didn’t want to face Sebastian, not after she kissed him as if she’d been starved for life. She dried herself, dressed and pulled her damp hair into a ponytail before she braced herself as she walked to his car. He had the passenger door open for her.
“I would appreciate it if you didn’t say anything at all about what happened before, in my room.” She stared straight ahead of her. The best thing was to set the rules and hope he’d agree.
“You can’t kiss me like that and expect me not to say anything.”
Then again, why did she think he would obey her.
“Please.”
He covered the hand on her thigh with his own, brought it to his lips and kissed the inside of her wrist. The heat of his mouth seared her.
She whipped her head around to face him. He turned to meet her head-on. She wavered first, whisking her hand away and planting her gaze straight ahead of her again. She couldn’t do this with him now.
By the time he parked his car, the unyielding panel she enclosed herself in dissolved. She fidgeted, restlessness scaled her resolve. She allowed her anxiety thirty seconds of life before she straightened her shoulders, alighted from the car before he had a chance to open the door for her and attacked the stairs leading to the front door.
She turned to face him with an expectant look on her face as he stood at the bottom of the stairs. He smiled, taking two steps at a time to meet her. He swung the door open and gestured she enter first.
She hesitated. Her life as she knew it ended here ten years ago by the hand of Catherine Simmers, no less. The memory jackknifed her with the same stark force it did then. She exhaled and stepped into the high-ceilinged, tiled foyer of the Grays’ mansion. She wasn’t the same person from a decade ago.